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The implications of information and communication
technologies for sexualities and sexualised
violences: Contradictions
of sexual citizenships
Jeff Hearn
a,b,c,
*
a
Swedish School of Economics, FLO, PO Box 479, FIN-00101 Helsinki, Finland
b
Linko¨ping University, Sweden
c
University of Huddersfield, UK
Abstract
A key aspect of globalisation, glocalisation and transnationalisation is the development of information
and communication technologies (ICTs). Such technologies have major implications for sexualities and
sexualised violences, and raise profound implications, contradictions and challenges for sexual citizen-
ship. These implications include the affirmation of sexual citizenship, with the creation of new forms
of sexual communities; and the denial of sexual citizenship, with the production of new opportunities
for pornography, prostitution, sexual exploitation and sexual violences. The article goes on to focus par-
ticularly on the contradictory implications of ICTs for sexual citizenship. These include the simultaneous
development of more democratic and diverse sexual communities, and sexual work and sexually violent
work; movements beyond the exploiter/exploited dichotomy; complex relations of non-exploitative and
sexual exploitation, commercialisation of sex, and enforcement of dominant sexual practices; blurring
of the social, sexualesocial, sexual and sexually violent, and of the sexually ‘real’ and sexually ‘represen-
tational’; closer association of sex with the ‘visual’ and the ‘representational’; increasing domination of
the virtual as the mode(l) for non-virtual, proximate sociality, and possible impacts of the virtual on in-
creased non-virtual, proximate sociality, even greater possibilities for ‘pure relationships’; shifts in sexual
space and sexual place; development of new forms of transnational sexual citizenship, within shifting
* Swedish School of Economics, FLO, PO Box 479, FIN-00101 Helsinki, Finland. Tel.: þ358 9 431 33206/490; fax:
þ358 9 431 33275.
E-mail address: hearn@hanken.fi
0962-6298/$ - see front matter Ó2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2006.08.007
Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo
transpatriarchies. Contradictions between the scale of global material sex economies and the representa-
tion and reproduction of the sexual through ICTs appear to be increasing.
Ó2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Globalisation; Information and communications technology (ICTs); Sexual citizenship; Sexual exploitation;
Sexualities; Sexualised violence; Virtuality
The annual number of hardcore porn videos rentals in the US has risen from 79 million in
1985 to 759 million in 2001 (Hughes, 2002); in 1997 there were about 22,000 websites
with free-of-charge pornographic content, in 2000 about 280,000 (Campbell, 2003).
‘‘When Jane Rolan, 42, went to the Internet to look up an old [unnamed] friend, she ended
up having a torrid [non-contact] e-mail affair with a man she had met briefly 20 years
earlier.’’ ‘‘In three months we exchanged about 2,000 e-mails. .Every evening I would
lock myself away with the computer for six or seven hours. .I was exhausted from night
after night of frantic e-mailing.’’ (Gordon, 2002).
Introduction
Debates on sexual citizenship have often been founded primarily in national contexts, and
their specific politics of space. On the other hand, one of their interesting features is the clear
importance of transnational links, influences and comparisons, as well as the impact of supra-
national governmental institutions, such as the European Union (EU). Connections between
globalisation, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and sexualities and sexual-
ised violences are in a state of spatial and historical transformation. These changes apply to
modes of communication, forms and networks of social space and sexualesocial relations,
and cultural diffusion of (sexual) consumption between and beyond nations. As such, this ar-
ticle seeks to advance transnational geography of gender, sexuality
1
and embodiment (Binnie,
2004; Brown, 1997, 2000; Gibson-Graham, 1999; Longhurst, 2001), as well as being a transdis-
ciplinary contribution.
This article considers the implications of what are often, in malestream discourse, presented as
non-gendered, let alone sexualed,
2
processes of transnational and global change, particularly
ICTs, for sexualities and sexualised violences, and specifically contradictions around sexual cit-
izenships. It questions progressivist tendencies in some debates on sexual citizenship that global-
isation will necessarily bring more international contacts, greater sexual ‘liberation’ and gradual
extensions of sexual rights. I caution about separating discussions on sexual citizenship from
spatial, economic, political and technological developments, and instead argue for problematising
1
Sexuality refers to the social experience, social expression or social relations of physical, bodily desires, by and for
others (of the same, different or indeterminate sex/gender) or oneself. Sexual practices vary from fantasy to mild flir-
tation to sexual acts.
2
Sexualed refers to the idea of being given meaning or understood with reference to sexuality (Hearn & Parkin,
1995).
945J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
the (patriarchal) nationestate by analysis of transpatriarchies, that is, forms of patriarchy extend-
ing across and between national societies. Sexual citizenship should not be relegated to narrow
cultural or privatised realms, but seen in terms of political and economic inequalities, nationally
and transnationally. Accordingly, this article seeks to consider sexual citizenship in relation to
contemporary transnational spatial, political, economic and technological change. This involves
positive, negative and contradictory effects of certain uses of ICTs upon sexual citizenships, and
the implications of ICTs for the reformulation of social space and public (sexual) domains.
Sexual citizenship, like citizenship generically, is not amenable to one single definition (Bell
& Binnie, 2000; Brown, 1997; Evans, 1993; Lister, 2002; Weeks, 1998). It refers to (various)
‘(sexual) claims of belonging’, and associated and claimed sexual rights and sexual responsi-
bilities. Hekma (2004: 1) explains:
Citizens have been defined in classical liberal theory as adult males operating in a free
market. These men [sic.] were seen abstractly, without sexuality or body. Using a broader
concept of citizenship, however, its cultural, ethnic, gendered, and sexual facets can be
emphasized. Citizens have genders, sexualities, and bodies that matter in politics. The
rights of free expression, bodily autonomy, institutional inclusion, and spatial themes
are all pertinent to the concept of sexual citizenship.
Sexual citizenship refers to gendered, embodied, spatialised claims to sexual entitlements
(free expression, bodily autonomy, institutional inclusion) and sexual responsibilities (non-
exploitation and non-oppression of others) (see Brown, 1997: 5). The concept of sexual citizen-
ship crosses the private and the public, and directs attention to cultural, political and legal
aspects of sexual activities and expression. While sexual activities tend to take place mainly
in private spaces, actual and potential sexual contacts and partners are often found in public
spaces eworkplaces, educational institutions, the street, pubs and clubs, and increasingly
via virtual public spaces, such as the Internet eas well ambiguous privateepublic spaces,
like domestic parties, and various virtual privateepublic spaces, like chatrooms. This connect-
ing of the public and private domains is socio-spatial in character. Sexual citizenship, like cit-
izenship generally, is partly about movement, in several ways, beyond various private domains:
whether movement of women from domestic realms or of lesbians and gay men from specific
urban locales. In both such cases civil rights of freedom from abuse and violence may be in-
secure. Reformulation of safe public spaces, again in several senses, with full, protected civil
rights, is a central part of struggles for sexual citizenship, which grant people sexual entitle-
ments and sexual responsibilities.
3
At the same time, the very nature of public domains themselves are subject to extensive
change, with consequent implications for (sexual) citizenship. This is both a question of levels
of ‘‘netizenship’’ and of changes in the form of the public-ness of the reformulating virtual pub-
lic domains earguably, ICTs can be understood as both ‘free public space’, unfettered by
moral codes, open 24 h of the day, and the most surveilled social arena yet (Shields, 1996).
The public space of the WorldWideWeb (WWW) is characterised by anonymity, affordability,
accessibilty (Cooper, 2001); such change in public domains, or privateepublic domains,
4
is
3
The concept of sexual citizenship interlinks with a wide range of other contemporary formulations, such as sexual
politics, sexuality politics, intimate citizenship (Plummer, 2001, 2003), relational rights (Weeks, Heapy, & Donovan,
2001), and even life politics (Giddens, 1991) and emotional democracy (Giddens, 1999). Also see Poster (1997).
4
See Hearn (1992) and Stacey and Davies (1983).
946 J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
discussed in relation to ICTs. Virtual public domains include some well established features of
public domains, such as ability to meet, organise with or against, and speak politically and in
other ways to relative strangers, but also problematise some other features, for example, visi-
bility, identifiability, and even in some cases, rather paradoxically, safety. I thus take up Michael
Brown’s (1997) challenge to spatialise citizenship, but by moving on to recognise that space
and spatialisation themselves are transformed by ICTs.
The spatial interests and dimensions of sexual citizenship are in some senses often left un-
acknowledged or implicit. However, for the heteronormative sexual majority eand particularly
men, less so women esexual citizenship and its attendant spatialities are characteristically
guaranteed and confirmed in law and social practice, such as tax codes, marriage laws, and
mortgage applications. For some (male, heterosexual) actors, sexual citizenship seems an un-
questionable and inalienable right. Such spatialised sexual citizenships are, however, often
not available for sexual minorities.
ICTs have major implications for sexualities and sexualised violences, and raise profound
contradictions and challenges for sexual citizenship. In this article, first, the broad context of
globalisation, glocalisation and transnationalisation is examined. Next, the form and impacts
of ICTs, including the general implications of ICTs for the construction of sexuality, sexualised
violence and sexual citizenship are discussed. This is followed by discussion of more specific
implications of ICTS: in relation to affirmation of sexual citizenship, denial of sexual citizen-
ship; and contradictions of sexual citizenship, before a brief end discussion.
Globalisation, glocalisation, transnationalisation
Understanding contemporary social change within ‘globalisation’ demands attention to
many modes of sociality. Robertson (1995) highlights greater material interdependence and
unity, but not greater integration, of the world; world consciousness; promotion or ‘invention’
of difference and variety; and ‘clashes, conflicts, tensions and so on constitute a pivotal feature
of globalisation’ (Robertson & Khondker, 1998: 29). Giddens (1990) asserts the importance of
the nation-state, modernity, timeespace distanciation, reflexivity. Lash and Urry (1994) empha-
sise transcendence of the nation-state, significance of signs, symbols and transnational cultures,
and emerging global citizenships (Urry, 1999). Many commentators note the transformation of
boundaries: spatial, temporal, national, and organisational. This creates changing possibilities
for sexualities and sexualised violences, producing and intersecting with complex social divi-
sions and oppressions (Hearn & Parkin, 2001).
Malcolm Waters (1995) argues that globalisation affects movements, or not, of people,
goods, services, information, through material, political and symbolic exchanges ewith con-
tradictions in each case. Economic change is increasingly global, but immediate production of
goods is favoured to an extent, if unevenly, with high transport costs. The nation-state remains
a key political unit, clearly for those not citizens of particular nations. Symbolic exchanges are
global and local, with degrees of self-referentiality irreducible to global communication. He de-
fines globalisation as a ‘social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cul-
tural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are
receding.’ (p. 3). A fundamental aspect of this is ICTs. Globalisation can be thought of as com-
plex, simultaneous, contradictory combinations of the global and local, as in ‘glocalisation’
(Robertson, 1995). Transnationalisation may be a more accurate view of contemporary change,
especially in citizenship. In conceptualising the transnational, the nation is both affirmed and
947J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
deconstructed; ‘trans’ can refer to moving across or between nations, or problematising, dis-
solving nations or national boundaries.
5
Many texts present globalisation as ‘gender-neutral’, emphasising the growth of transna-
tional economic units, framed within ‘gender-neutral’ economic processes, reproducing an im-
plicit male narrative. Most globalisation theories, as in the examples from Giddens, Lash and
Urry, Robertson and Khondker, and Waters above, fail to give strong attention to relations of
gender or sexuality.
6
This is despite the importance of many gendered transnational phenom-
ena, such as male-dominated top management in multinationals; impacts of neo-liberalism
on nation-states; migratory and refugee movements; and global symbolic systems.
Globalising and transnationalising sexualities
Global, glocal and transnational processes are both gendered and sexualed (Binnie, 2004;
Hearn & Parkin, 2001;Poster, 2002). While sexuality may often be understood in terms of
that desire which is felt to be ‘primordial’ (MacKinnon, 1982), felt to be most one’s own, glob-
alisation may disturb this naturalism with consequences difficult to predict. In considering this
historicity of sexuality, I have found debates in anthropology on the relation of gifts and com-
modities useful. James (2001) describes the increasing abstraction and disembodiment of dom-
inant modes of practice in moving from ‘modern to postmodern’ societies. The dominant mode
of exchange is commodity exchange based on standardised and later electronic money; produc-
tion develops from industrially organised machinofacture to computer-mediated fabrication, the
dominant communication mode from print to electronically based media; direct bureaucracy
shifts to abstracted bureaucracy in the nation-state (or trans-nation-state) and disembodied
corporations. Extending this argument, sexuality and sexualised violence are also likely to
be organised through social relations, with emphasis on electronic communication, trans-
nation-states and disembodied corporations.
While sexuality and sexualised violence are not centrally addressed in most globalisation
theory, many sexual issues are strongly affected by and bear on global change eincluding ex-
tension of commodity exchange and production; trafficking in women (transnational movement
without full and informed consent, sometimes for sexual exploitation)
7
; militarism and prosti-
tution (selling of sex for money or other material gain); new imaging technologies; uses of sex-
uality in global militarist symbolism and practices, as in the ‘new pornography’ of arms sales
presentations (Peretti, 2000); and expansions of global and regional sex trade, not least through
ICTs (Pyle & Ward, 2003).
Just as cities are characteristically organised in sexualespatially, so the world is organised in
sexualespatial ways, as in the association of European and US imperialism and militarism,
mass prostitution and sex tourism in South-East Asia (Enloe, 1983). The global scale and
5
There is a considerable literature, from diverse positions, that questions the theoretical usefulness and empirical ac-
curacy of the notion of globalisation (Banerjee & Linstead, 2001; Hirst & Thompson, 1999; Petras & Veltmeyer, 2001;
Rugman, 2000). One critique is the need to give greater emphasis to how nation-states, national boundaries and organ-
ised labour at the national level remain important, even with increases in various transnational flows (Edwards & Elger,
1999; Gibson-Graham, 1999; Waddington, 1999).
6
See Hearn (2004), for more extended discussion, including some notable exceptions.
7
Seager (1997: 115) distinguishes four types of trafficking in women: women already prostitutes ‘exchanged’ by their
pimps in another; girls sold into prostitution by poor families, with or without full knowledge of their plight; women
lured into prostitution under false pretences; slave trade and kidnapping. ICTs can assist all these types.
948 J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
complexity of trafficking and prostitution
8
is difficult to estimate and appreciate. Even in the
mid-1990s estimates of women in prostitution in Thailand ranged from 300,000 to 2.8 million,
with a third minors. The Centre for the Protection of Children’s Rights, Bangkok estimated
200,000 masseuses in Bangkok, with 100,000 masseuses 20 years or under (Bindel, 1996: 29).
Global processes are sexualed in specific ways. It is not material sexual ‘exchanges’, polit-
ical control of sexuality or reproduction of symbolic sexuality in general that globalise; rather
particular sexualities are privileged and subordinated, often, though not always, men’s (hetero)-
sexuality and sexualised violence dominating other sexualities, with clear spatial dimensions. In
many, though not all, transnational developments particular groups of men are the most power-
ful (Connell, 1998; Hearn, 1996), even with the complexities of women’s increasing organising
by and positive uses of ICTs, including within ‘Third Wave feminism’.
Moreover, Povinelli and Chauncey (1999) have critiqued globalisation texts for often pro-
ceeding ‘.as if tracking and mapping the facticity of economic, population, and population
flows, circuits and linkages were sufficient to account for current cultural forms and subjective
interiorities, or as if an accurate map of the space and time of post-Fordist accumulation could
provide an accurate map of the subject and her embodiment and desires.’ (p. 445) (see also
Brown, 1997, 2000; Longhurst, 2001). Many transnational studies recognise transnational so-
cial spaces, flows and forms of deterritorialization (Appadurai, 1996; Hannerz, 1996; Ong,
1999), in which space is not strictly experienced or understood in terms of physical, geograph-
ical space of nationally designated places that people occupy.
Information and communication technologies
ICTs are a key aspect of global change. Rapid growth in ICTs changes social structures and
processes; like MNCs, they are difficult to control and police. ICTs are not just texts but exist
within and create material social and sexual relations. US research suggests that Internet users
spend just under 10 h a week visiting over 200 million Websites (Cooper, Delmonico, & Burg,
2001: 6). ICTs and virtuality generally constitute profound challenges to historical construc-
tions of the nation-state, national citizenship and hegemonic politics of space. ICTs suggest
a model of organisation (in both corporate and more general senses), highlighting transforma-
tions of boundaries and boundarylessness, in nations, citizenship, organisations, and
subjectivities.
ICTs involve the use of multiple complex technologies and have several characteristic fea-
tures. These include: time/space compression, instantaneousness, asynchronicity, reproducibil-
ity of image production, the creation of virtual bodies, the blurring of the ‘real’ and the
‘representational’ (Hearn & Parkin, 2001). Wellman (2001) has set out the ‘social affordances
of computerised communication networks’: broader bandwidth (thus greater effectiveness);
wireless portability; globalised connectivity; and personalisation. ICTs are not disembodied
technologies but are operate in local social practices (Heiskanen & Hearn, 2004). They are
everchanging, becoming cheaper and more widespread, though still beyond the reach of
8
The phenomena of prostitution is immensely complex and variable in form and content, in terms of sexuality,
age, gender, racialisation, social status, degree of control/consent/coercion/exploitation (Abbott, 2000; Chapkis,
2000; Weitzer, 2000). For example, in their UK Internet research Sharp and Earle (2003) differentiate ‘escort agencies’,
independents, and massage parlours. For sophisticated theoretical analyses of different interpretations, see Jyrkinen
(2005) and O’Connell Davidson (1998). This article does not review this complexity; rather it describes how ICTs
can be used to deny sexual citizenship, as one part of the argumentation.
949J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
many: hence the haves (‘netizenship’) and have-nots. They contribute to fundamental change in
forms of control and democracy, with the technology for both decentralised TAZs (temporary
autonomous zones) and strong centralised surveillance.
9
ICTs and sexual citizenships
Sexual and sexualelegal subjectivities and actual or potential citizenships have key trans-
forming socio-spatial forms and potentialities. This applies in several ways, in relation to par-
ticular forms and relations of sexualities eaccording to gender (for example, female, male,
‘third genders’, transgenders), sexuality (such as bisexual, gay, heterosexual, lesbian), relations
of gender/sexual power (dissident/subordinated, dominant/privileged), and relations of sexual-
ised violences (violated/victimised, violating/perpetrating). Such variations within globalisa-
tion, glocalisation and transnationalisation have definite socio-spatial dimensions and
implications, for example, the observation, limits and transcending of national (sexual) sover-
eignties in law and culture. Sexual and sexualelegal subjectivities embrace widely different
positions, on, for example, marriage, prostitution, pornography, and sexual ‘consent’, that are
probably being further diversified through uses of ICTs.
ICTs are part of broader histories of the publicisation (Brown, 1981) of sexuality and tech-
nologies of the senses. Increasingly complex technologies have developed from the peep show,
photography and film, and associated histories of ‘the real’, the glossy image, the pin-up, the
star, and the film icon. Telephones brought ‘call girls’; specialist telephone sexual services, sex-
lines and telephone sex followed. Video and television technologies have led onto sex videos,
sex channels and sex pay TV. ICTs have raised possibilities of techno-sex, high-tech sex, non-
connection sex, mobile phone sex, and virtual sex. New forms of sex, sexual storytelling, sexual
genres, sex talk shows and digital sexual media have mushroomed.
Incipient ‘globalisation’ of sexuality through ICTs can be produced through local and glo-
balised social practices. ICTs have multiple impacts on sexuality, with changing forms locally
and globally.
10
There are daily reports of how ICTs are changing how sexuality is done and
experienced ein chat lines, Internet dating, email sex, cybersex, cyberaffairs, falling in love
on the Net eproviding new channels for sexuality, sexualised violence and sexual citizenships.
Speed and ease of ICTs creates many possibilities for new forms of cybersexual experimenta-
tion, such as mixed or multi-media sex, interactive sex, and interactive pornography. Cybersex
activity includes pornography exchange; real-time discussions (like chatrooms), and compact
disk distribution (Delmonico, 1997). Men comprised over 80% of respondents of Cooper
et al.’s (2001) survey of 9265 Website respondents; men generally used the Web for sexual pur-
suits, women more chatrooms. There are also sometimes inadvertent uses and constitutions of
sexuality and sexualised violence, such as through sexual spamming or webjacking, redirecting
Website uses to other sites made for other purposes.
11
These all constitute technologies of sexuality, changing both dominant and dissident sexual-
ities and citizenships. This is not only a matter of commercial(ised) forms of sexuality, but the
9
On ICT governance, power and control see Loader (1997), Poster (1997) and Smith and Kollock (1999).
10
An especially interesting example of ‘the power of love’ was the rapid worldwide spread of the ILOVEYOU com-
puter virus in May 2000 that led to $1billion of damage.
11
The European Profeminist Men’s Network Website was previously hacked redirecting users to a pornography site;
the Friends Unlimited Website for old school friends has been used to share memories on violence and sexualised
violence from teachers, sometimes years ago.
950 J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
very constitution of non-commercialised or less commercialised sexualities, including majority
sexualities ewhether through large virtual meeting places (such as MySpace
12
), video- and pho-
tosharing, Internet dating, non-contact socialesexual relationships,
13
or effects of covert use of
Internet pornography on long-term relationships (Turpin, 2006). Advanced technologies have
been applied more broadly, as in mobile CCTV, disability aids, and prenatal screening. Sono-
gram technologies have significantly altered ideas around sex, procreation, pregnancy, abortion,
disability, preferences on offspring’s sex, and even attributions of agency and subjectivity to the
fertilised egg in utero. ICTs, such as mobile phones, can also function as ‘extensions of their
owner’ (Licoppe, 2004) and facilitate long-distance relationships (Holmes, 2004).
The Internet and ICTs are sites for changing sexuality, sexualised violence and sexual citi-
zenship. There are many forms of use of ICTs in relation to sexuality and sexualised violence,
and different, indeed contradictory, ways that ICTs construct and influence sexual citizenships.
In the remainder of this article I address: ICTs as affirmations of sexual citizenship; ICTs as
denials of sexual citizenship; and contradictions of sexual citizenship. These three sections
are necessarily illustrative of socio-spatial processes, rather than analyses of particular sexual-
ities or arenas of sexual activity.
ICTs as affirmations of sexual citizenship: sexual communities and other innovations
ICTs create and are created by various changing, sometimes rapidly changing, forms of
transnational communities of (sexual, sometimes sexually violent) practice, that increasingly
render as problematic national notions of citizenship and sexual citizenship. Various forms
of sexual citizenships can be affirmed by the provision of (what are seen as) non-exploitative
sexual services, by mutual sexual communities, and by ‘commonweal’ sexual organising.
Non-exploitative
14
sexual services can enhance sexual citizenship, with ICTs acting as a me-
dium for passing on information on sexuality, sexualised violence and sexual health ein educa-
tion, counseling, therapy or some other service from another agency. They can provide necessary
information that may be difficult to obtain, especially for relatively isolated or ‘non-out’ individ-
uals or groups, and, as such, they can create a relation of citizen dependence. Mutual, self-help
sexual communities can promote sexual citizenships, by developing the formation of commun ities
of users either for or against particular forms of sexuality and sexualised violence, and for the per-
formance or subversion of sexuality, sexualised violence and sexual citizenships. This can involve
organising around sexual interests, arguably as a means of democratisation and giving of agency in
sexuality. They can range from ICTs as simple exchange and communication to more organised
information and organising modes for sexual groups. Wellman (2001: 245) discusses cybercom-
munities of shared interests, more or less on a self-help basis, for example, isolated non-dominant
sexual groups, bestiality/‘animal lovers’, fat lovers, sexual abuse survivors, or for symbiotic
groups, such as sadists and masochists. There has been a spate of recent research on the creation
12
MySpace.com is the most famous networking site and blog community, widely used by young people to meet virtually.
Recently bought from Intermix Media by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, it is reported to have about 92 million registered
users. In July 2006 it announced a high profile campaign on internet safety for children (Behr, 2005; AP New York, 2006).
13
Comparison might be made here with the rather long-established phenomenon of courtships of prisoners, usually by
women outside of men ‘inside’.
14
For reasons of space, I do not enter here into the extensive debate on exploitation and non-exploitation of sexualities.
This is clearly especially important in the field of sado-masochism and the articulation of sexual consent. For a concise
introduction see Edwards (1994).
951J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
of similar communities amongst both buyers and sellers of sex (for example, Sanders, 2005; Sharp
& Earle, 2003; Soothill & Sanders, 2005). To state the obvious, speaking of such ‘affirmations’ in
no way suggests endorsement on my part. Indeed questions of bodily autonomy are especially im-
portant, and indeed problematic for some such groups, for example, those who sell sex, just as is-
sues of non-exploitation and non-oppression for other groups, such as those who buy sex. Some
forms of communal sexual virtual organising could be seen by those outside as harmful or poten-
tially so, and I return to this question later.
Sexual communities can promote new forms of sexuality, sexual activity and sexual experi-
ence (Plummer, 1995). ICTs do not merely act as media for sexuality and sexualised violence
but can be constitutive of sexuality and sexualised violence. They provide possibilities for var-
ious forms of sexual experience, such as, as places for meeting by mutual agreement potential
romantic/sexual partners (sometimes with less emphasis on physical appearance) or ‘safer’ sex-
ual experimentation and identity exploration (Leiblum, 1997). There are also increasing tech-
nological possibilities for many-to-many ‘social software’ and ‘new sexual affordances’ for
mutual identification (as with the Yenta matchmaker system that combines virtual community,
collaborative filtering and web-to-cellphone technology, so ‘.you always know who is in your
physical vicinity at the moment who shares certain affinities and willingness to be contacted.’)
(Rheingold, 2000; Schofield, 2003; Wellman, 2001).
Within virtual sexual identity group communities interaction may range from functional to
sexual. According to Cooper (2001: 2), ‘Flirtation and innuendo, long the staples of leisurely
seduction, rapidly escalate into frank sexual discussions and proposals on the Internet. .
The speed, magnitude, and endless possibilities, as well as the attendant effects, are without
precedent.’ In the everyday world of mobile phones, this process can include the use of text
messaging and third generation videophones as sex aids (Turner, 2003). In hotchatting, ‘.
the chat mode is used to talk to each other about sexual fantasies in the past, present or future.
The language is detailed, graphic and expressive, to try to transmit sexual activity over the com-
puter.’ (Argyle & Shields, 1996: 64) Taking up cyberidentities or selves can involve in gender
swapping/b(l)ending/spoofing, in various ways, thus making for virtual and transitory forms of
sexual citizen, whose performance is dependent on others’ continued participation. Moreover,
webcams, mobile phones and even television reality shows offer new possibilities for practice,
identity and image-making, through ‘‘revealing’’ rather than hiding from surveillance (Koskela,
2004)eand thus new possible forms of sexual citizenship.
In addition, there are some more general developments of what might be called common-
weal sexual organising as a means of promoting sexual citizenship, in which there are attempts
to create organisational forms that are promoted as for the benefit of the ‘‘whole community’’,
rather than a particular sexual interest (see footnote 15). These might include cyberpolicy and
protection, with the control, monitoring and surveillance of such sexual(ised) and sexually vi-
olent cultures (Hearn & Parkin, 2001; Jyrkinen, 2005). As such, they are premised upon a pro-
tective model of community and democracy, and may be beset by various contradictions, as
discussed later. Commonweal organising may include using ICTs to develop more inclusive no-
tions of sexual citizenship, as in developing sites of resistance against (sexualised) violence
through ethical codes of conduct and rules of online and offline behaviour.
ICTs as denials of sexual citizenship: sexualised exploitations and other traditions
Not all uses of ICTs are affirming of sexual citizenship. Indeed a very important aspect of
the development of sexual citizenship is the growth of various forms of sexual exploitation and
952 J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
sexualised violence through ICTs: in ICT communication, newsgroups, marketing, and repre-
sentation. ICTs are also important in the facilitation of sexually violent communities, such as
‘paedophile’ rings, or those using these technologies for sex trafficking or grooming for child
sexual abuse. Sexual citizenship for some people can be undermined by the provision of sex-
ually exploitative (sexploitation) business, services and organising. This can involve distinct or
overlapping parties, typically with different (sexual) interests: sexual owners, managers, entre-
preneurs; sexual workers; trafficked people; and sexual consumers. These groups may also
overlap. Constructions of such citizenships, and bodily autonomy, are typically very uneven
for these various parties, with ICTs increasing commodification, advertising and marketing
of commercial sex services, and acting as forms of sexual production themselves, as in cyber-
pornography. This can lead to more or less sexual(ised) and sexually exploitative cultures.
15
There is evidence of email and Internet harassment (Dalaimo, 1997), digi-bullying, ‘shame
flaming’, ‘net sleazing’ and ‘trolling for babes’, and reports of major increases in the use of
mobile phones for malicious and threatening text messaging and mobile-related crime. For ex-
ample, a 70% increase in 2002 occurred in Lothian and Borders police area, Scotland, along
with widespread use of the technology for bullying in UK schools (Thompson, 2003). The
FBI reports crimes against children involving the Internet during 1996e2001 increased by
1280% (Kellogg, 2002). Such ‘globalisations’ thus occur through local social practices.
More broadly, Hughes, following extensive empirical WWW and Internet research, has sum-
marised the global situation, as follows:
The Internet has become the latest place for promoting the global trafficking and sexual
exploitation of women. This global communication network is being used to promote and
engage in the buying and selling of women and children. Agents offer catalogues of mail
order brides, with girls as young as 13. Commercial sex tours are advertised. Men ex-
change information on where to find prostitutes and describe how they can be used. After
their trips men write reports on how much they paid for women and children and write
pornographic descriptions of what they did to those they bought. Videoconferencing is
bringing live sex shows to the Internet. .Global sexual exploitation is on the rise.
The profits are high and there are few effective barriers .the traffickers and promoters
of sexual exploitation have rapidly utilized the Internet for their purposes. .The Internet
is being used by men to promote and engage in the sexual exploitation of women and
children.
16
ICTs may solve one of the historical problems of prostitution and the sex trade, which has
long often involved extensive travel by women to be within reach of the men (Wellman, 2001:
232). Men are the main producers and consumers of sexualised violence, sexual exploitation,
and visual and aural sex online. ICTs can be partly understood as collective and individual ac-
tions of particular groups of men, and historically specific development of specific forms of
masculinities, such as, local pimping masculinities. Particular women’s bodies, by contrast,
tend to be the objectified. It is generally men who buy women’s bodies in the global sex trade,
15
This analysis of the affirming and denial of sexual citizenship links with Blau and Scott’s (1963) distinctions on
‘who benefits’ from different organisations (business, service, mutual benefit, commonweal), developed further in terms
of who benefits from the sexual component of organisational goals (managers and owners, clients and customers, mem-
bers, none of these) (Hearn & Parkin, 1995: 68). Such latter distinctions suggest different sexual citizenships.
16
This and the following long extract are from Hughes (1997). See also Hughes (1999).
953J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
not the other way round. This thus not a gender-neutral enterprise, but one that demands explic-
itly gendered analysis.
17
The types of sexual exploitation documented on the Internet include:
prostitution, bride and sex trafficking, sex tours and tourism, pornography, information services
and exchange of information on prostitution, and live sex shows through videoconferencing.
Even with their market differentiations, there are many linkages between these activities
(Jeffreys, 2002; Jyrkinen, 2005); and while they take many forms, with different and sometimes
complex relations of sexual exploitation (see footnotes 7and 8), they can subvert the sexual
citizenship of those exploited.
The oldest Internet fora for promoting the sexual exploitation of women and children are
specialist newsgroups and websites. Since the early 1990s sex newsgroups have been archiving
information, as ‘The World Sex Guide’ Website puts it, to provide ‘‘comprehensive, sex-related
information about every country in the world.’’ Hughes describes this as follows:
The [World Sex] guide includes information and advice from men who have bought
women and children. They tell others where and how to find and buy prostituted women
and children in over ninety countries from seven world regions .Details of the men’s
reports of their sex tours and buying experiences include: information on where to go
to find prostitutes, hotel prices, telephone numbers, taxi fares, cost of alcohol, the sex
acts that can be bought, the price for each act, and evaluations of the women’s appear-
ances and performances. .The men .describe, often in graphic detail, their experi-
ences of using women and children. The scope and detail of this exchange is
completely unprecedented. .Men describe taking a computer print out of hotels, bar
addresses and phone numbers with them on their trips, or describe how they used the In-
ternet search engines to locate sex tours. .The most voluminous coverage is on Bang-
kok, Thailand. .names, addresses and phone numbers for 150 hotels where men will
feel comfortable are listed.
Sex tours, sex holidays and sex tourism, whose advertisements are posted on the Internet, are
sometimes for individual men, more often for organised tours. The main source areas are richer
parts of the world. Main destinations include India, South-East Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines,
the Caribbean, and Central America. The Netherlands, Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea are
both sources and destinations. Sex tourism is big business and in many instances has the im-
plicit or even direct support of host authorities. One agency Pimps ‘R’ Us runs sex tours to
the Dominican Republic from New York; prices include computer lessons so costs can be
set against tax (see also O’Connell Davidson, 2001).
ICTs also impact upon trafficking in women. Seager (1997: 115) explains: ‘The global sex
trade is almost entirely coercive, sustained by high levels of violence .. In the global sex net-
work, women’s bodies are commodities. Prostitutes are traded, girls are bought and exchanged
among cartels, and international orders for fresh prostitute recruits are placed through brokers.
The international trafficking of women and girls .thrives on economic disparities: between
women and men .and between regions on a global scale. New regions and countries enter
into the sex trade as their economic fortunes wax or wane.’ (my emphasis; see footnote 7). Traf-
ficking at times blurs with prostitution and other sexual work.
17
This applies also with the historical rise of gay pornography, some women’s participation as owners and managers,
indications of pornographers’ attempts to create a more pornography ‘for women’, and women’s sex tourism (Sanchez
Taylor, 2001).
954 J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
The largest source of trafficked women is the countries of the former Soviet bloc. The In-
ternet International Agency Gimeney advertises: ‘Here are Russian women in a hurry to leave,
looking for willing, well-healed [sic] Western men to wed. Pick through them like peaches in
the produce rack, neatly sorted by their age and hair colour. See something you like? Pay to get
her address and write something nice enearly all of them seem to know English.’ (Naughton,
1998). Some Websites list women with young children, asking if men want women with or
without children; some give pictures of naked children, suggesting children are thus being traf-
ficked (Hughes, 1997, 2002).
International respectable magazines, youth magazines and pornography magazine ownership
production and markets, both paper and virtual, are increasingly interlocked (Pinsent & Knight,
1998). Pornography is expanding through satellite television, pay television, video and the In-
ternet. By 1998 approximately 9 million, 15% of the US online population, accessed one of the
top five ‘adult’ Websites (Cooper, Scherer, Boies, & Gordon, 1999). According to Mackay
(2000: 64e65), 90% of all material downloaded from the Internet is pornography. By 2000
nearly 70% of Internet online sales comprised sex products and services (Ma
˚nsson & So
¨derlind,
2004). N2H2 filtering software company reported a 350% increase in pornography sites over
the year 2001e2002 (Kellogg, 2002); between 1998 and 2003 its database of pages identified
as pornography grew from 14 million to 260 million (Turpin, 2006). Most violent and sadistic
pornography, as well as much child pornography, is produced by Western men with women
from Central and Eastern Europe, and the Third World, with associated racialisations.
Live videoconferencing is amongst the most advanced technology currently on the Web: live
audio and video communication is transmitted over the Internet from video recorder to com-
puter. This involves buying live sex shows, in which the man can direct the show in some cases,
with real-time global communication possible. Pornographers are also leaders in developing In-
ternet privacy and secure payment services. DVDs provide increased possibilities for making
videos with scenes shot from multiple angles, so the viewer can choose that preferred. Viewers
can interact with DVD movies similarly to video games, giving them an apparently more active
role.
Though transnational and national legal and policy frameworks distinguish between traffick-
ing in women and children, prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, there are interlinkages be-
tween them (Jyrkinen, 2005). For example, most Internet advertising by mail order bride agents
also offers sex tourism. Men pay for addresses of the women in catalogues, and agents later
organise group tours for men to meet the women with whom they have corresponded. Such
agents are likely to also be involved in trafficking of women (Hughes, 2002). The use of
ICTs in the sex trade and trafficking facilitates these linkages greatly, making their future in-
crease likely.
These various uses of ICTs have very negative effects in denying sexual citizenship to sexual
workers and trafficked persons, usually women and children, even though ICTs can assist them
in some respects. Overall, this contrasts with the relative power of sexual controllers, owners,
managers, entrepreneurs, on one hand, and sexual consumers, on the other. In most aspects and
arenas of the sex trade it is the sexual citizenships of sexual controllers and sexual consumers
that overrides, and often obliterates those of sexual workers and trafficked persons.
Contradictions of sexual citizenship
The WWW and ICTs more generally can be understood in several contrasting ways. They
may be seen as inherently patriarchical and hierarchical, or as potentially feminist and
955J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
non-hierarchical in form; they may be subject to patriarchal welcome or critique, or feminist
critique or welcome.
18
Gendered distinctions can be made on whether human interaction
with ICTs, WWW and virtuality is seen as primarily embodied, disembodied or transcending
embodiment/disembodiment. According to Cooper (2001: 2), the Internet is a medium of com-
munication and online sexuality that is inherently neither good nor bad. Abstractly, this may be
so but in current patriarchal socio-political conditions it is not neutral. Rather, the increasing
impact of email, Internet, cyberworlds and ICTs raises complex contradictions for sexual
citizenship eof several different types.
First, these can be considered at a broad global level eeconomically, politically, and sym-
bolically. To understand contemporary changes around sexuality, sexualised violence and sex-
ual citizenship demands attention to material, political and symbolic realms of globalisation
and transnationalisation. In each case there are major contradictions. Economically, to para-
phrase Waters (1995: 9), the production of ‘exchangeable’ (sexual) items involves local concen-
trations of (sexual) labour, (sexual) capital and (sexual) raw materials. Sexual contact is a local,
immediate bodily matter. Global movement of people and goods accompanies local material
‘exchanges’, as in trafficking in women and children, with consequent implications for their
(loss of) sexual citizenship.
Politically, there are also strong contradictions between the dominant national focus in devel-
oping sexual citizenship and attempts to control transnational activities, specifically difficulties in
controlling ICTs across borders. Political regulation of sexuality and sexual citizenship is con-
structed primarily through the nation, yet both politics and ICTs increasingly transcend national
boundaries. In 1990 the Philippines banned sex tours and mail order brides, but these continue. In
1995 Sweden was the first country to jail a citizen for sexual offences abroad. The UK 1996 Sex
Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Act makes it an offence to incite someone to commit cer-
tain sexual offences against children abroad. Incitement can include telephone calls, faxes and
email received in the UK. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 allows state surveil-
lance of Internet traffic, including child pornography. The UK 2003 Sexual Offences Act intro-
duces the offence of ‘meeting a child following sexual grooming’, including following virtual
communication, and also extends powers in relation to trafficking into, within and out of the
UK for sexual exploitation. Other legal and regulatory initiatives in the EU, the US and elsewhere
have been contested within legal process and subverted through technological means. The US
Communications Decency Act that would have limited some pornography on WWW was de-
clared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Post-Sept ember 11th there are much greater powers
of email and Internet surveillance in the US and elsewhere. Malaysia, Russia and Singapore have
laws on state interception of Internet material, though Internet crime and trafficking in women is
well developed in Russia and elsewhere; the situation in the France, Germany, Ireland and many
other countries is more laissez-faire (Greenslade, 2000).
There is much other international legal activity, such as the 1979 UN Convention on Dis-
crimination Against Women (CEDAW), 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence
against Women, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and legal initiatives on trafficking,
sex tourism, and Internet use. Their implementation may be severely contradicted by other
laws, organised political forces, corruption, lack of enforcement, and legal complexity. The
18
Interestingly, and illustrative of such contradictions, one reviewer of this paper argued that it should have a more
explicit gender analysis and naming of men, while another criticised it for presenting a ‘one-sided radical feminist
perspective’.
956 J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
EU is an important site of such political struggle, with major differences of opinion on the re-
lation of prostitution to violence against women and trafficking in women and children. Exclu-
sion of prostitution and pimping from violence against women by the EC in 1998 shows these
contradictions. Debates on technological monitoring of ICTs intermingle with opposition from
libertarian, ‘free speech’ and anti-censorship lobbies. National regulation of sexuality accom-
panies political internationalisation (Jyrkinen, 2005).
Symbolically and culturally, there are contradictions, even hypocrisies, between forces of
moral authoritarianism that seek to turn sex into a problem (Phoenix & Oerton, 2005) and
the mainstreaming of hypersexualisation and pornographisation in pop culture, MTV and dig-
italisation (Attwood, 2006; Hearn & Jyrkinen, 2006; Jeffreys, 1997; Raymond, 2004). Sym-
bolic sexual ‘exchanges’ are seen by some as ‘liberating’ relationships from spatial referents:
they can supposedly be produced anywhere, anytime, with few resource constraints. They often
seek to appeal to what are seen as ‘human sexual fundamentals’, but local symbolic meanings
are not so easily liberated from power relations. There is both increasing sexual material in
email and on the Internet that is difficult to control, and increasing use of technology to monitor
and control access to that material. An extensive counter business sector provides products to
monitor such ICT use. These issues are crucial in global commerce and governance, and spe-
cifically in pornography, prostitution, trafficking, and sex tourism. Symbolic sexuality global-
ises along with local meanings, again with nuanced implications for sexual citizenship.
Second, contradictions occur in the buying and selling of sex. For example, some of those
selling sex are using the Internet to seek more control of their (sexual) work, and the risks in-
volved (Sanders, 2004). A number of UK researchers (for example, Sharp & Earle, 2003;
Soothill & Sanders, 2005) have used Internet Websites that record feedback from (male) sex
buyers and sometimes (female) sex sellers to explore new homosocial communities between
the men, and between the women concerned. Soothill (2004) argues that this can be helpful
to the ‘‘maintenance of public order’’. However, Sharp and Earle (2003) conclude that, while
these uses of technology can be seen as ways of prostitutes assuming more control of their
work, ‘‘we may see this development as a further insidious refinement in an ever-increasing
drive to reduce women’s bodies to mere commodities.’’ This is a complex and shifting field
of debate. While it can be argued that ICTs can be used to assert sexual citizenship, and that
it might not be appropriate to argue that all selling sex are exploited, it is difficult to maintain
that those who sell sex as long-term work promote their own bodily autonomy or indeed wom-
en’s liberation, within even broad definitions of sexual citizenship.
Third, ICTs create major opportunities to organise for sexual citizenship, and for the practice
and experience of new forms of sexuality. Virtual communities of interest, whether around, for
or against particular sexualities or sexualised violences, may appear to offer a safe and trust-
worthy arena for support and this may be so in some cases. Yet they also bring their own con-
tradictions (cf. Wellman & Gulia, 1999); the familiarity of the Web can be deceptive; it may
become a new form of hegemony. Comparison may be made with critiques of engineered
‘familial’ corporate cultures (Ezzy, 2001) that have developed at the same time as greater dis-
embodiment of corporate institutions. ICTs and the WWW may offer an apparent ‘home’ for
members of sexual communities, but they can also be seen as social sites for the extension
and diffusion of disembodied sexual capitalism, sexual consumer cultures and creation of sex-
ual pleasures (Bernstein, 2001). What are initially sexual communities of interest and affirma-
tions of sexual citizenship can both involve violations of sexual citizenship for others, even for
some members, and be bought out to become exclusionary, pay-to-use capitalist enterprises
(Behr, 2005) (see footnote 12).
957J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
Fourth, various uses of ICTs for sexualities and sexually violent purposes can easily blur into
each other; they can in effect reconstitute sexualities and thus actual or potential sexual citizen-
ships. Affirming sexual citizenship and denying sexual citizenship can go hand in hand. Sexual
activity, without any payment whatsoever, whether on one’s own (for example, masturbation) or
with another or others, is clearly possible in many and various embodied forms, beyond the
reach of ICTs, in the privacy of ‘one’s own home’ or elsewhere. In that sense at least sex is
not necessarily constituted directly by ICTs and other disembodied social institutions. On
the other hand, sex is constructed in the context of disembodied social institutions, such the
state and large corporations, and the laws, controls and ideologies they engender. ‘Private’ sex-
ualities are also sites of power and dominance; they may constitute sexualised violence, but do
not usually constitute prostitution or pornography. However, such (non-commercial) sex can be
recorded, written about, photographed, videoed, televised, placed on the Web (with various ac-
cess rights), and retrieved from ICT interfaces, with or without participants’ permission or
knowledge. The same or similar sexual practices can be enacted forcibly or non-forcibly,
with or without payment (as with ‘homemade pornography’ on the Web). If such sexual prac-
tices are enacted with payment this is often called pornography. Some forms of sexual viola-
tion, such as some forms of pornography may be experienced as affirmation of sexual
citizenship for some consumers and controllers, and even for others.
As the modes of exchange, production and communication become more disembodied, the
possibilities for the reproduction of those sexual texts increases eeven accessible on millions
of pc screens worldwide. Representation is pornographised globally; pornography is liable to
virtualisation, as images once stored electronically can be reproduced and manipulated: the
woman is thus dispensable. The impact of ICTs increases the potential for creating various
global and local sexualised cultures and more general pornographising of sex. Additionally,
if one is buying a car, information on the car or advertising of the car do not in themselves com-
prise the offer of the car. However, with sexuality and sexualised violence, information or ad-
vertising of sexuality and sexualised violence can themselves comprise the offer and experience
of sexuality and sexualised violence. This is comparable to the covert circulation of formal
legal statements on child sexual abuse amongst child sex offenders in prisons, for their own
sexual purposes. With sexuality and sexualised violence, there is, for some, little separation
of sexual information, sexual advertising, production of sexual material, and sexual experience.
Overall, contradictions occur in the constitution of sexualities and sexualised violences, and
the (re)construction of sexual citizenship, both their affirmation and denial. There are greater
possibilities for more open, democratic, diverse networking and community-building of sexual
minorities and members of non-dominant sexual communities, including those suffering or sur-
viving the damage of dominant sexualities and sexualised violences. ICTs also provide means
for sharing and control, monitoring and surveillance of personal/intimate information, geo-
graphical location, and sexual practices, including both the exploitative, such as the sexual eval-
uation of women, and the resistant.
ICTs can also assist the extension of sexual work, sexually exploitative and sexually violent
work, partly through legitimisation of the new sexual exploiters, as their actions undermine sex-
ual citizenship of exploited others. This may involve new communities of sexual sellers and sex
buyers; movements beyond the exploiter/exploited dichotomy, as when sexual workers become
sex employers; complex relations of non-exploitative and exploitative sexual services, sexual
exploitation, commercialisation of sex; and the enforcement of dominant (male, heterosexual)
sexual practices, representations and ideologies. At the same time, various blurrings of the sex-
ually ‘real’ and the sexually ‘representational’ seem to be occurring, with closer association of
958 J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
sex with the ‘visual’ and the ‘representational’. Blurrings of the social, sexualesocial, sexual
and sexually violent, and the increasing overlap between commercial and non-commercial
sex, in increasingly pornographised and sexually intertextual social environments (Hearn &
Jyrkinen, 2006) are facilitated. Yet increasing domination of the virtual as the mode(l) for
non-virtual, proximate sociality (Bauman, 2003), and the impact of the virtual on increased
non-virtual, proximate sociality (Woolgar, 2002), may make the possibilities for ‘pure relation-
ships’, beyond traditional ties and obligations, more likely.
Finally, ICTs can provide new forms of transnational sexual space and ease the development
of new incipient forms of national and transnational fora of sexual citizenship, transnational
sexual citizenship, including transnational theorisations of sexual integrity, bodily autonomy,
sexual civil rights, and opposition to sexualised violences, within shifting transpatriarchies.
Concluding remarks
Glocalisation, globalising ICTs and transnationalisation are matters of gender and sexuality.
ICTs are both very large-scale, expanding social phenomena that transcend nations and are dif-
ficult to regulate and control. They alter boundaries; in that partly lies their power and power for
sexual citizenships. Relations of sexuality, sexualised violence and sexual citizenships with
these changing ICTs are complex. ICTs embody features characteristic of late modern organisa-
tional environments (Tsoukas, 1999). They can be used and understood as offering potentials
for gendered action at a distance, mediated yet instant communication, gendered demateriali-
sation of economies, and gendered reflexivity in meaning. There appears to be a growing dis-
junction, even contradiction, between the scale of international and global material capitalist
sex economies (prostitution, trafficking in women, transport of people by unlawful force, deceit
and coercion, bride purchase, pornography, sex shows, etc.) and the representation and repro-
duction of the sexual through new technologies (in computer sex, cybersex, virtual sex,
computer-aided imaging, etc.). This is both a social and an analytic disjunction, as different
scholars often focus on one or the other. Contradictions between the material and the represen-
tational may lead policy on sexual citizenship in contradictory directions, within changing
forms of transpatriarchies. Indeed one (usually male) person’s ‘sexuality’ may be another’s
(usually female) sexual violation. Though technology exists for more virtualisation of sex, sex-
uality and sexualised violence, the material represented on ICTs is usually done somewhere,
with real people and real effects.
The historical changes, practices and ongoing developments discussed raise key spatialised
and de-spatialising issues for sexual citizenship. This is partly a matter of complex reconstruc-
tions of place/space, materiality and discourse that accompany virtuality, if not necessarily in
a determinate way. Place and space continue to matter, for both physical embodied sexual prac-
tice and organising around sexuality, sexualised violences and sexual citizenships, even if place
and practice appear more fragmented. ICTs and virtuality assist new socio-sexual possibilities,
but their embodied sexual enactment is still likely to depend for most upon spatial proximity.
The spatialised material bodily and the de-spatialising discursive representational are both
separable and inseparable for sexual citizenships, with movements, contradictory, sometimes
simultaneous, from private to public, and public to private.
(Sexual) Citizenship is no longer (if it ever was) a coherent, unified national, state or sepa-
rate public domain matter; it is better understood as cutting across nations, states, civil socie-
ties, homes and families (Brown, 1997), as reconstituting and re-spatialising individuals and
communities, not just rearranging ‘them’ within de-spatialised political structures ein
959J. Hearn / Political Geography 25 (2006) 944e963
short, as contradictory. The ease of ICT use may make further possibilities for the extension of
global patriarchies and global capitalisms into our hearts, even offering ‘pure relationships’.
Acknowledgements
This article follows work with Wendy Parkin in Gender, Sexuality and Violence in Organiza-
tions (Hearn & Parkin, 2001) and elsewhere, and with Marjut Jyrkinen on ICTs, globalisation
and the sex trade (Hearn & Jyrkinen, 2000, 2006; Jyrkinen & Hearn, 2005). It has developed
from earlier presentations at the Gendering Technology Conference, University of Jyva
¨skyla
¨,
November 2001; University of Huddersfield Centre for Constructions and Identity Seminar, Feb-
ruary 2002; University of Uppsala Gender Research Group, September 2002; and the Gender
and Power: Organisations in Flux? Conference, Helsinki School of Economics/Swedish School
of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki. May 2003. I am grateful to participants at
all those sessions and to the anonymous journal referees for their very helpful comments.
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